Islamic State group plans to rebound with more attacks – MI6

Image copyrightEPAImage caption Alex Younger, head of MI6, said people returning from Syria warzones should be investigated

The head of MI6 has warned that the Islamic State group is reorganising for more attacks despite its military defeat in Syria.

Alex Younger, the UK’s intelligence chief, also told of his concern about jihadists returning to Europe with “dangerous” skills and connections.

They should expect to be investigated and possibly prosecuted, he said.

His comments come after Shamima Begum, a teenager who ran away to join IS, said she wants to return to the UK.

Ms Begum, now aged 19 and pregnant with her third child, said she had no regrets about travelling to Syria in 2015 but wanted to have her baby in Britain.

Mr Younger told the Munich Security Conference that so far the return of IS militants had proved a “completely manageable problem”, but he warned that it was complex and unpredictable.

“We are very concerned about this because all experience tells us that once someone has put themselves in that sort of position they are likely to have acquired the skills and connections that make them potentially very dangerous,” he said.

Russian intelligence agencies, blamed for the poisoning of Sergei Skripal, are a “standing threat” and “very little is off limits” to them

The UK’s commitment to European security was “unconditional”, despite Brexit, and that “lives had been saved” in the past year because of cooperation between Britain and other EU countries

Security chiefs could use a temporary exclusion order to block jihadists returning from Syria, such as Ms Begum, from entering the UK.

The controversial legal tool bars a British citizen from returning home until they have agreed to investigation, monitoring and, if required, deradicalisation.

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Media captionWe asked people in Bethnal Green, where Shamima Begum previously went to school, whether the teenager should be allowed back to the UK

Home Secretary Sajid Javid said he “would not hesitate” to prevent the return of IS supporters.

But Lord Carlile, a former independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, said Ms Begum would have to be accepted back into the UK if she had not become a national of any other country.

Under international law, it is not possible to render a person stateless.

Ms Begum told the Times that she had lost two children to illness and was scared of losing her unborn baby in the refugee camp where she was living – and has offered to “do anything required” to return home.

She was one of three schoolgirls, along with Kadiza Sultana, 16, and Amira Abase, 15, from Bethnal Green Academy in east London, who left the UK for Syria in February 2015.